She blinked. “What the hell does that mean?”
I scrubbed a hand down my face, exhausted. “I’ll tell you later. Just not now.”
She nodded, even though curiosity burned in her eyes.
Then something shifted in her expression. She looked down at herself. The wrinkled dress from last night. Her stockings ripped to shreds, and a dark bruise blooming on her thigh.
Her breath hitched.
“Wait,” she whispered. “I remember...”
She suddenly covered her mouth with both hands, her eyes widening as something clicked in her memory. “The club owner. He came to me with something new—I didn’t even think twice. I thought it would just be a buzz, a high—not this. Not something that would knock me out.”
She swallowed hard.
“I remember voices. Hands. Someone dragging me.”
My chest tightened.
“And then—” she flinched, eyes darting to the hallway. “Gunshots. I heard gunshots.”
“Yes,” I said quietly. “That was him.”
She looked at me, horror dawning as the fragments clicked together. “They did this to me?” She gestured at her clothes, her body. “The stockings… the bruises…?”
“Yes,” I said. “I’m so sorry, Lera.”
She slid down the wall until she was sitting on the floor, shaking. “Oh my God,” she whispered. “Oh my God, Kira…”
I crouched in front of her, my hands firm on her knees. “It’s over. He killed them. The rest won’t dare come near us.”
Valeria looked at me, worry written all over her face. “You watched it all happen—are you okay?”
“Yeah,” I said quickly. “I’m fine.” The lie came easier than it should have. “I’ve survived worse.”
She blinked, still trying to process everything, then let out a breath. “Fuck. You weren’t kidding about him being a psycho killer.”
“No,” I said softly. “I wasn’t. But he saved our lives.”
“Next time you want to whisper about me, try not doing it outside my door,” Maksym called out, voice rough from sleep.
We both flinched.
He appeared in the doorway, shirtless, his presence magnetic and quietly dangerous. He paused there for a moment, studying us with that unreadable expression of his. Then, without saying a word, he turned and disappeared back into his room. A second later I heard a cabinet door open.
When he returned, he had two pairs of sweatpants in his hand—one gray, one black—which he tossed toward us in a careless, dismissive motion.
“Put these on,” he said. “This psycho is driving you home.”
Valeria blinked. I blinked harder, heart stuttering in my chest.
Lera was still gawking at him, slack-jawed and stunned.
He raised a brow, eyes flicking between us. “Let’s go. I don’t have all day.”
Somehow, even with the bruises, the wreckage, and the aftermath hanging heavy in the air, I felt a thread of something strange curl in my stomach.
Maksym was many things. Terrifying. Violent. Beautiful.
